William Rees appointed to new Global Security leadership position

A new position that elevates the importance of the Lab’s work in key program areas, including non-proliferation, intelligence support, defense, nuclear counterterrorism, and homeland security.

June 16, 2009

Los Alamos National Laboratory sits on top of a once-remote mesa in northern New Mexico with the Jemez mountains as a backdrop to research and innovation covering multi-disciplines from bioscience, sustainable energy sources, to plasma physics and new materials.

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LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, June 16, 2009—Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced that William S. Rees, Jr. will join the senior leadership team on June 29 as the principal associate director for Global Security, a new position that elevates the importance of the Laboratory’s work in key program areas, including non-proliferation, intelligence support, defense, nuclear counterterrorism, and homeland security.

“Given the importance of these mission areas to the Laboratory’s future and their increasing emphasis by the administration, I have elevated the level of the Laboratory’s leadership position in this area to principal associate director, and I have every confidence that Will Rees is the right person to lead this effort,” said Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio.

Rees will be tasked to leverage Laboratory capabilities to meet the current and emerging global security challenges and to transition these programs to a level of effectiveness and impact such that Global Security is regarded internally and externally as a core mission of the Laboratory. As such, Rees and his organization will play a leading role in the overall strategy and performance for these programs across the Laboratory.

“I am honored to be selected to lead this new organization representing the future of the Laboratory and anticipate working together with the talented scientists at LANL to address significant national challenges in areas that cut across the Laboratory’s impressive range of capabilities,” said Rees.

Rees’ most recent assignments include the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., where he is a fellow, and deputy under secretary of defense for Department of Defense (DoD) Laboratories and Basic Sciences, DUSD (LABS). In the latter capacity, he was responsible for providing scientific leadership, management oversight, policy guidance, and coordination of the more than $1.8 billion annual basic research programs of the military services and defense agencies. In addition, Rees was responsible for DoD Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and workforce issues, grants policy, Defense Laboratories policy, and international S&T programs. He was the United States’ science and technology lead to NATO and the U.S. principal on the NATO Research and Technology Board.

Prior to his service in DoD, he was with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s S&T Directorate.

Rees is widely recognized internationally as a chemist. He holds seven patents and has more than 140 publications. For over a decade Rees was a full professor and director of the Molecular Design Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Rees earned his bachelor of science degree from Texas Tech and his doctorate from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (’86 – ’89).

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Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWXT Government Group, and URS, an AECOM company, for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.